


Stripped down to our skeletons

by clockworkmargaret (morganya)



Category: Nathan Barley (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, F/M, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-03-07
Packaged: 2019-03-28 09:35:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13901250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morganya/pseuds/clockworkmargaret
Summary: Claire wants to make something of herself. She doesn't want to be like him.





	Stripped down to our skeletons

Maybe she's a masochist. Maybe it's a sickness. But she can't keep chasing after Rocket in the increasingly faint hope that he'll someday give her what equates to slightly over nothing, and she can't keep using Nathan's equipment if she's ever going to get anywhere.

Nathan seems to think she'll fuck him if he keeps making magnanimous gestures. He arranged for her to meet for dinner with one of his friends, someone she was assured was "well Murdoch." She's hoping to secure him as a financier, so she can get her camera back and buy a new laptop with editing software. Then she can start finalize her shot list, scout for interviewees and maybe stop lying in her brother's bed.

She crouches over Dan's tiny mirror to put on her makeup. Her shoes are five years old and her dress came from Oxfam, but with enough primping and pinning and pulling and pushing, she can look like a good investment. She slicks a layer of gloss over her lips.

The bedroom door opens. She knows it's Dan by the quality of silence in the room. She doesn't bother to greet him, because he's in a sulk about her going out tonight. His disapproval runs its fingers along her spine.

"So are you going to fuck him then?" Dan finally asks.

"None of your business," Claire says. She throws her eyeliner into her handbag.

"What is he, huh? DJ? Publicist? Designer? Professional emailer? What job did he pick out of the idiot hat?"

"He owns a company, _Dan._ "

"Like that matters."

"How's the article coming?" Claire says. "Writing lots of words? Everything in its place?"

He glares at her. "I'm working on it."

"Oh, you're _working_ on it. Not having a go at me."

"You've got no backbone, Claire. The moment anyone offers, you're fluttering your fat arms at them and pulling off your knickers."

"And why do you give a fuck who I get into bed with? You're my brother, not my boyfriend."

"But…you fuck idiots."

"I'm trying to get my camera back, Dan. I'm trying to pay for the laptop you smashed. I'm trying to get my fucking film made."

Dan looks at her like she's mad. "But…you fuck idiots."

"I know the only thing you care about is who I'm fucking, but I need to go and actually make something of myself, Dan, and I can't stay here drowning in failure like you."

Dan's eyes flicker. Years ago she would have never been able to talk to him like this. Years ago she never would have thought of him as a failure. He would just been her big brother Dan, brilliant and handsome and always the coolest person in the room, and she thought that was the way things would always be. Now she sees the muscles in his jaw work like she's just slapped him, and she should feel triumphant but she just feels furious. She grabs her handbag and storms out, ignoring Jones' cheery, "Awright, Claire!" on the way.

She fumes all the way to the restaurant. Right before she goes in, she takes a deep breath and paints a professional smile on. He's waiting for her.

Lionel doesn't look like a typical friend of Nathan. He's a few years older, in chinos and a button-down rather than the Hosegate uniform of unwearable flash. The wall over their table is dominated by a mural of a huge bleeding red flower with a yellow center.

After the initial pleasantries she gets right to the pitch. He watches her without expression as she goes through it, chin resting on his knuckles. The café starts to fill up as she talks. A woman with two babies in a buggy sits on one side of their table, a couple wearing matching glittery bunny ears on the other. Claire doesn't know if she should lower or raise her voice but all of them seem to be ignoring her.

She winds down the pitch and says, "Do you have any questions?"

Lionel smiles pleasantly at her. "So what do you do, Claire?"

She blinks, then puts the smile back on. "I'm a filmmaker, as I said."

"Yes, what films have you made?"

"I –" She's prepared for this. She knows that holiday videos recorded on her dad's old camera don't look good on a CV. "I've done experimental short projects up until now. But I really think that London: Undone and Done In will –"

Lionel waves a hand. "Do you work with Barley at all?"

"I do my editing over at Trashbat," she says carefully. At the next table, the couple in the bunny ears are talking about the new MP3 player they want to buy.

Lionel smiles faintly at her. "You edit? Eight hours a day? Seven days a week?"

The waiter brings over their food and refills their water glasses. Lionel doesn't even pick up a fork and Claire isn't sure what's going on. "Sometimes I help Nathan with his projects," she says.

"Right," Lionel says. "I think I've seen your collaborations. Coked up little posh girls with their tits out. Will those be in your film as well?"

_Mistake,_ Claire thinks. The baby buggy at the next table is blocking her chair and she doesn't know how she can get out without knocking it over. The couple at the next table are talking about a new prank video they just watched. _Mistake, mistake, should have listened to Dan._

She doesn't say anything, because she's afraid if she opens her mouth she'll tell him to fuck off. She stares at him.

"You know, ducks," Lionel says, "I sat through your entire pitch and not once did you mention any shooting locations, or people you had lined up to work with you, or even what equipment you were using. As near as I can reckon, all you want to do is to go around playing Maysles in London and hoping a film will fall out by the time you're done. It's not exactly a tempting proposition, is it?"

The flower on the wall is brilliant red, covered in fleshy globs of paint. Claire says, "So why the fuck did you bother sitting through it?"

He shrugs. "I don't have any other appointments today and I'm bored."

"So you never even considered hearing me out." She wonders what Dan's doing now. Probably still sulking over a pint, if he hasn't passed out already. She knows all the ways Dan tries to escape. None of them are healthy.

Lionel says, "You've got no experience and you willingly work with Nathan Barley. I'd have to be insane to consider investing any money in you."

"Fuck off," Claire says. She tries to push her chair out but the buggy is still blocking her way.

Lionel doesn't seem bothered. "You can't tell me that you ever thought you'd be successful."

"At least I have a fucking plan," Claire says. "At least I'm out there trying to make something happen."

"Of course you are," Lionel says. "You're getting by on ambition but without the talent or knowledge to back it up. Did you have a plan for today, babes? Or did you think you'd come in here wearing that cheap dress and just have it all happen for you?"

"How has someone not stabbed you through the eye yet in your life?"

"Don't care enough, I suppose."

"I want to leave," Claire says.

He looks mildly at her. "Do you fancy going into the toilet for a quick shag?"

"Fuck off."

"How are you doing for money these days, Claire?"

"I'm not a fucking prostitute."

"Of course you're not. You're a _filmmaker._ A filmmaker who spends her time filling the internet with trash. Under someone else's name. Not exactly buttering any parsnips these days, are you, love?"

"Why the fuck would I want to sleep with you?" Claire asks. The couple at the next table are talking about someone else's pet ferret and she realizes that neither she not Lionel has even raised their voices. They've managed to keep things at a conversational level and nobody here has a fucking clue. "Is this the only way you can get off? You take women to lunch and then act like a prick the whole time?"

"Not the only way. But it's fun."

"I'm not going to fuck you."

He looks at her. "I can give you five hundred pounds."

Claire picks up her water glass and throws it at him. He squawks and the restaurant goes quiet. She heaves herself out of the chair, feeling the table wobble. The buggy next to her teeters and the woman gives her a dirty look which she ignores. She walks out on a surge of adrenaline.

On the way back to the flat, everything sinks in and she has to dig her nails into her palms to keep from bursting into tears on the street. Her cheap Oxfam dress is cutting off the circulation in her arms and for a crazy moment she wonders if she should just gather her things from Dan's room and go back home.

A few years ago, Dan used to call them all at home, assuring her parents that he was fine and that London life agreed with him. It was only when Claire started to talk about coming down south that he tried to persuade her not to. He'd said that the city was full of idiots and she wouldn't fit in. At the time, she'd thought he was just trying to keep his pesky little sister away from his glamourous life. Now she wonders if he might have been trying to protect her all along and the thought makes her want to scream.

In the back of her mind, she'd wanted to come to London to try to measure up to him. Or measure up to the idea she had of him. He'd never really tried to disabuse her of that idea. Maybe if he'd ever told her she was clever enough to make it on her own, she wouldn't have come down and spent months sinking to his level, until they were both as bad as each other without a clear way to change. He'd lied to her. He spends his life lying to her.

She hears Jones' music as she's coming up to the door. She's hoping that Dan's asleep but when she walks into the front room Jones is behind his decks, lower lip sucked in between his teeth in concentration, and Dan is sitting in the middle of a protective circle of bottles, tiny eyes red and baleful. Claire steels herself.

Dan looks up at her. Over Jones' noise, he says, "So how was the fuck?"

Out of hopeless spite, she snarls, "I've had better." Dan's jaw tightens. Jones pauses from his music and looks at Dan. Claire doesn't have the energy to interpret Dan and Jones' telepathy at the moment. She stalks into Dan's room and slams the door.

She strips her dress off and stares at it. Her bra is digging into her ribcage. Her feet hurt.

The door opens and Dan comes in without knocking. She supposes he's got the right to. It's his flat. He looks not in the least surprised to see her down to her bra and knickers, and she just wishes he could focus on something that isn't himself for one second, say one thing to her that doesn't hurt.

She balls up the dress in her fist and throws it at him. He lurches back, drunkenly, batting the fabric aside like a cat. "The fuck is wrong with you, Claire?"

She throws herself across the room, spitting and scratching at him. She knocks him off balance and they fall against the wall. He tries to get a handle on her and she bites his shoulder through his shirt, cotton rough on her tongue.

" _Stop_ ," Dan says and throws her onto the bed. He puts a big hand on her chest to keep her down. "What are you doing?"

"You lied to me," she says, struggling to get up. "You lied about _everything_."

"Stop," Dan repeats and she tries to kick him. Her shoe flies off. She wraps her legs around his waist and pulls him towards her. He falls forward onto her body.

Dan radiates sick, sour heat. He smells of alcohol, old sweat and cigarettes and it's rank but so familiar that it acts as an immediate soother. Her legs unclamp from around his waist and fall limp.

Dan startles at her sudden lack of motion. "You're all right, Claire?" he says, and she thinks this was meant to be definitive but he doesn't sound sure of himself. She doesn't answer.

Her silence seems to settle him. He tentatively runs his fingers over her abdomen and repeats, "You're all right, Claire," and then again, and again, until it's less words than it is sound, as though he's calming a nervous horse. She lets herself be lulled by it, pressing into the warmth of his body. He stops caressing her belly and lets his hand drape over the crotch of her knickers. His fingers press into her, making sure she's there.

It's never gone much further than this. There's too much risk of biology interfering, another Ashcroft growing in her belly and then staggering out into the world, another secret to keep in the family. Thankfully Dan's usually too wasted to get it up.

Maybe it's a sickness. Maybe she's a masochist. She still can't put a stop to it.

"It's never going to happen," she says. "The film…it's never going to work out."

Dan stirs and looks up at her. He bites his lip. "Of course it will," he says finally, and draws her near. "Of course it will."

She shuts her eyes and presses into him. Perhaps, after everything, just this once, she can pretend to believe him.


End file.
